For Jennifer Lynch, the daughter of David Lynch and his first wife, the painter Peggy Reavey, a life of telling stories through images might have seemed like a no-brainer. Lynch has played a small role in Eraserhead, had worked as a teenage production assistant on Blue Velvet, and had already written a Twin Peaks tie-in book before beginning work on her own first film as a writer-director: Boxing Helena (1993), a dark comedy about sexual obsession and self-loathing. It would have been strange if she’d been one of the few young filmmakers at that time who didn’t reflect her father’s influence. Still, Helena was met with angry charges of nepotism — for a start.

Helena was made in the shadow of a nasty lawsuit resulting from Kim Basinger’s pulling out of the lead role, and inspired media-fueled “controversy” regarding everything from its subject matter to its poster art and MPAA rating. It wound up being one of the most harshly reviewed movies ever given a major release. Critics usually show a certain amount of restraint when discussing the work of a twenty-five-year-old first-timer, but on this occasion, the gloves were off.

In the wake of that firestorm, Lynch’s follow-up project turned out to be her daughter, Sydney, who’s now thirteen. She also spent years conquering alcoholism and recovering from a major car accident that doctors originally thought would leave her permanently incapacitated. By the time she had the chance to direct her second film, Surveillance, no one could suggest that she hadn’t paid her dues.

Surveillance, which is set largely on a remote stretch of Nevada asphalt on a bright sunny day, began with a script by Kent Harper, which Lynch reworked to emphasize “the elements of desolation and the idea of people watching each other.” The cast includes Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond as the FBI agents trying to piece things together, as well as Pell James, French Stewart, Cheri Oteri, Michael Ironside, and the writer, Harper, as a highway cop who, like everyone else on the screen, knows something he’s not telling. It also features a remarkable performance by the now-eleven-year-old Ryan Simpkins as the most observant character, whose insights the adults around her shrug off at their peril. The film premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and more recently won the top prize at Spain’s Festival de Cine de Sitges. I spoke to Lynch about her return to directing. — Phil Nugent

It’s been more than fifteen years now since your first movie came out. A lot of people went after you like you’d kidnapped the Lindbergh baby.
They sure fucking did! [laughs]

Does that explain the long wait between Helena and Surveillance?
The world sort of forced me to take a while. And I made life decisions that forced me take a while. I decided to have a child and raise her by myself, and I figured that if you invite somebody into the world, you owe them your attention twenty-four hours a day. And I got sober, and I had three spinal-reconstruction surgeries. So I was in and out of hospitals, and getting the kid to and from school. I was still writing the whole time. But I wasn’t on a set.

But to have people react [to Helena] the way they did was kind of a blessing. It gave me the opportunity to turn it around and live a really quality life outside the business. But I still had this desire to tell stories. And when I went back to work, I felt that I really knew what I wanted to do. And now that my daughter can be on the set with me — she’s thirteen — I want to show her that she can do whatever she wants to do, whatever that is. I’m doing what I love, and that’s what I want for her.

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